The present invention relates, in general, to document discrimination and counting. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for discriminating and counting documents such as currency bills.
Currency discrimination systems typically employ either magnetic sensing or optical sensing for discriminating between different currency denominations. Magnetic sensing is based on detecting the presence or absence of magnetic ink in portions of the printed indicia on the currency by using magnetic sensors, usually ferrite core-based sensors, and using the detected magnetic signals, after undergoing analog or digital processing, as the basis for currency discrimination. The more commonly used optical sensing technique, on the other hand, is based on detecting and analyzing variations in light reflectance or transmissivity characteristics occurring when a currency bill is illuminated and scanned by a strip of focused light. The subsequent currency discrimination is based on the comparison of sensed optical characteristics with prestored parameters for different currency denominations, while accounting for adequate tolerances reflecting differences among individual bills of a given denomination.
Machines that are currently available for simultaneous scanning and counting of documents such as paper currency are relatively complex and costly, and relatively large in size. The complexity of such machines can also lead to excessive service and maintenance requirements. Furthermore, these prior machines are large in size. These drawbacks have inhibited more widespread use of such machines, particularly in banks and other financial institutions where space is limited in areas where the machines are most needed, such as teller areas. The above drawbacks are particularly difficult to overcome in machines which offer much-needed features such as the ability to scan bills regardless of their orientation relative to the machine or to each other, and the ability to authenticate genuineness and/or denomination of the bills.
Accordingly, there is a need for a compact currency discriminator that can process a stack of bills at a high rate of speed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved currency scanning and counting machine which is relatively simple and compact, while at the same time providing a variety of advanced features which make the machine convenient and useful to the operator.
Another object of this invention is to provide such an improved currency scanning and counting machine that is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and maintain, and which also facilitates service and maintenance. In this connection, a related object of the invention is to provide such a machine having a relatively small number of parts, and in which most of the parts are arranged in a manner to have a long operating life with little or no maintenance.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a machine that is capable of operating at a faster throughput rate than any previous machine able to determine the denomination of the scanned bills.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved method and apparatus of the above kind which is capable of efficiently discriminating among bills of several currency denominations at a high speed and with a high degree of accuracy.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
In accordance with the one embodiment of the present invention, the foregoing objectives are realized by providing a currency evaluation device for receiving a stack of currency bills and rapidly evaluating all the bills in the stack. This device includes an input receptacle for receiving a stack of bills to be evaluated and a single output receptacle for receiving the bills after they have been evaluated. A transport mechanism transports the bills, one at a time, from the input receptacle to the output receptacle along a transport path The device further includes a discriminating unit that evaluates the bills. The discriminating unit includes at least two detectors positioned along the transport path between the input receptacle and the output receptacle. The detectors are disposed on opposite sides of the transport path and they receive characteristic information from opposite sides of the bills. The discriminating unit counts and determines the denomination of the bills. The evaluation device also includes means for flagging a bill when the denomination of the bill is not determined by the discriminating unit. Bills whose denominations are not determined are called no call bills. According to one embodiment, the evaluation device flags no call bills by stopping or halting the transport mechanism. For example, the transport mechanism may be stopped so that a no call bill is at an identifiable location, such as being the last bill in the output pocket. Positioning a detector on each side of the transport path contributes to an evaluation device that can efficiently handled and process bills fed in any orientation. Utilizing a single output receptacle contributes to making the evaluation device compact and less complicated.
According to another embodiment, the evaluation device includes means for flagging a bill meeting or failing to meet a certain criteria. For example, the evaluation device may perform one or more authenticating tests on the bills being processed. If a bill fails an authentication test, that bill may be flagged as a suspect bill. According to one embodiment, the evaluation device flags bills meeting or failing to meet certain criteria, such as being suspect bills, by stopping or halting the transport mechanism. For example, the transport mechanism may be stopped so that the flagged bill is at an identifiable location, such as being the last bill in the output pocket.